Sunny California

This is my district!
This is a banana tree in front of our apartment.

Hello! It is a beautiful sunny day here in southern California. The other day it was cloudy for about half the day, but that's just about the biggest change in the weather we've had in the past 4 or 5 months. It is really nice, but I do miss rain, snow, clouds, and seasons in general. But it sure does make missionary work nice. We spend a lot of time walking and contacting on the streets and knocking on doors. Our area is sooo small, and for some reason they give us 1,000 miles each month to use on our car. We've never even got close to that. I would much rather spend time on the sidewalk.

Guess what?! We had been having a really rough week trying to teach people, but we continued working really hard, and we got a couple miracles from our hard work! Two random investigators just showed up at church yesterday!!! They were people we've never even met before! One of them is from Oaxaca, Mexico! We set up an appointment with her. A member brought her to church! Yay members!!! The other one came with some family that were visiting from Arizona. But both of them live in our area! Yay!!! Woohoo! An investigator also came to church. Her baptismal process is going to take a few months, but she is doing really well, and has a strong testimony.

We are planning on having some of our recent converts go to baptisms for the dead this week with the ward!!! That should be really awesome!

We are going to have a couple FHEs tonight with recent converts!!! Woooo. Being a missionary is awesome!

Transfers will be this Wednesday. This past transfer went by uber fast. Elder Gonzalez is a really great missionary! We are working super hard, and finding some great success.

The most delicious thing I ate this past week was actually a plate of rice, beans, and eggs. Seriously, it was delicious! The Salvadorians have this really good cream that they put on beans and rice. It's like a mix between sharp cheddar cheese and sour cream. I love it. I hope I can find it in Vernal. You would like it. All the Latin people think it's really weird that I like beans so much. They don't think white people like rice and beans. I tell them that my mother makes it too. The Latin people think that us white people only eat hotdogs and hambugers and sandwiches. Then I tell them about the delicious food that my mother makes. They have like a zillion different ways of making rice, beans, and chicken. But not much variety other than that. I really like Chile Relleno. I had a new vegetable called "Chayote". It is like a mix between a potato and a squash. It's really good. I like all vegetables now mom. I won't complain anymore when you make things with peppers, onions, and tomatoes. I even like squash. I think my tastebuds have matured. But now I like really spicy foods. So that weak sauce I used to eat at home (the green and red bottles) isn't going to cut it hahaha.

Something happened that made me miss Utah this past week... We were at the church building (which is just across the street from UCS), and I started seeing all these people wearing UofU apparel. The scouts were selling parking spots for all the cars that were going to the big football game! I got to talk to a few people from Utah. I met a man from Heber too. We were at the church because we were going to meet an investigator there, but the investigator never came. One man from Utah offered to buy us tickets to the game haha, but we kindly denied the offer. But it felt really weird to be around all of that! Utah is such a great place!

Welp, that's all for now. I love you all. Thanks for everything! The church is definetly true. Nothing else makes sense. The authority of God has been restored, and so has the other testament of Jesus Christ, the Book of Mormon. It's true. That's for sure! I love the scriptures. And most of all, I'm really grateful for the Savior. Have an awesome week!

Love, Elder Watkins